Have I Mentioned That the Last Time I made a Resolution I was in Grade 10?

As a kid I my dad and I spent hours writing gratitude and manifestation lists, I told you he's he hippie in my gene pool.

I was six-years old when I arrived, schoolbag in hand, in grade one, and I was the shortest one in my class – it wasn’t an age thing, it’s a gene pool thing, my mother stands at 1.50m tall my dad was about 1.79m. To this day I am thoroughly surprised that I reached 1.70m, I’m thoroughly grateful for those teenage growth spurts (though I am yet to make peace with the stretch marks). From the time I understood what resolutions were, I made them but I was never very good at keeping them. All this changed when I failed Grade 10 on a language technicality and realised that there was a disparity between planning to do something and actually getting it done...

You see, having to stay in school an extra year put one more year between myself and my plans for world domination, and put an end to wishy washy resolutions. In the place of ‘this year I’d like to...’ I put ‘this year I will...’ and a love for lists was born – daily lists, monthly lists and long-term lists. I suppose some might view the idea of a long-term list as just another resolution, I don’t.

Here is how I’m planning to fulfil two items on my long-term list for 2012 and a short-term list to help work toward that. I don’t have a deadline for this, but the challenge is to do (not think about, DO) small things that put me on that path.

Open up to new Experiences and new People

My mother always says that the reason I’m not married yet is that I keep to routine, that I look at adventure suspiciously. She’s right. My father on the other hand says that, “the only man worth marrying is one that pops up in my routine, without me going out my way to meet him.” I have to admit, I agree. But I also want to explore and expand my circle of friends (that, if I’m honest, is more like a triangle) by doing the following:

Join a yoga class. On a trial basis, at first, and if I don’t meet any interesting people, at least I’ll get toned.

Start a book club. I’m at Exclusive books every other week, I read at least one book every month. I might as well add, wine (more), five or more other people and finger food to the equation.

Sign up for a cooking class. This a shameless scheme with the hopes of meeting my future person. I have a serious thing for the rugged indie types that can cook and alterior motive – if he can cook then my only contribution to dates would be picking the wine.

Get quality sleep. This is something I have battled with for most of my adult life, I used to think that if I didn’t get nine hours of sleep then I wouldn’t have a good day, and I didn’t because I kept stressing, and the more stressed I got, the less I slept. Days became weeks and weeks months. It was a vicious, sleep-deprived, ‘luggage under the eyes’ cycle that I’ve decided to do something about by:

Making my bed a laptop and Blackberry-free zone;

Keeping my bedroom dimly lit;

Engaging in a meditation session 15 minutes before getting into bed; and (the tricky part)

Drinking absolutely no coffee or wine two hours before bed.

Wish me luck!

Whatever your list for the new year – Happy 2012! I hope this year is kind to us all.

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I wasn’t always known as ‘The Sleep Expert’. In fact my nickname was “The Fountain of Knowledge” whilst studying and practicing Occupational Therapy. I had a special interest in sleep but this was purely academic until I found myself experiencing the effects of sleep deprivation first hand.